Friday, October 16, 2009

Not much change from the last post. Nice weather the next couple of days with temps in the 60's. A storm will come in to our North on Monday but the only affect right now looks like a possible shower & cooler temps in the 50's. Mammoth opens today after the big dump they got. Of note is that the last time they opened this early in 94 Northstar also opened early in Nov. on feet of powder. Can it happen again?

We are in a positive PNA pattern for the next two weeks. There will be a trough over the Eastern half of the country with a series of possible Nor'Easters. Meanwhile a ridge will build over the West sending all storms up into Alaska & Canada. The PNA models suggest that we go towards negative at the end of the month. The models also consistently suggest a decent storm around the end of the month. Halloween storm again?

In the last post talking about El Nino years I left out 68-69, but I think that is because of the back to back mild El Nino years that year & the next made the overall PDO go warmer than the other 3 seasons I talked about. I want you to look at what I"m looking at here. 51-52, 63-64, 68-69, & 76-77 were all in the overall cold PDO cycle as you can see here. You can see the spike around 69-70, but looking at the first chart you can see that the two winters leading up to each of these 4 years were negative/cold PDO. In 51-52 & 68-69 (our two big snowfall years) you can see the PDO started warming in the fall & then got cold Dec. & Jan. before starting to warm in Feb. In 63-64 it started to go cold a month earlier in Nov, & warm a month earlier in Jan. In 76-77 it continued to warm the fall thru winter & slowly cool in the following spring & summer.

You can see where we are currently at the bottom of the chart. In an overall cold PDO coming off two cold PDO winters with a mild El Nino & the PDO starting to warm positive this fall. The same starting point as these 4 previous winters. So let's watch & see what happens with the PDO going towards Dec. If history is correct we want the El Nino to stay weak & the PDO to go negative/cold in Dec. to repeat the same conditions as those two big seasons.

Take a look here. What is missing from the 30 year cold PDO cylce we are looking at is a Moderate El Nino. They were either strong or weak. Last moderate was 02-03 but the previous two winters were not nearly as cold in the PDO as the past two winters. This is why I doubted the El Nino would get moderate this year, because it would be the first time in this situation. But, the El Nino signals like the SOI are showing possible strengthening to moderate, so you we may be entering uncharted waters, literally. We still have the quiet sun on our side. Stay tuned.........BA